New Velocity 2X trailer and update: So far, so good!

Hi folks. Today I’m here to reveal a brand new video showing alpha footage of Velocity 2X; to talk through some of the things we’ve been working towards; and to outline what we’re going to be adding next!

First, the video:

It’s starting to look the part, but there’s still a lot to do. The major thing left to do is improve the animation on the player character Lt. Kai Tana. We’re working on that right now.The art style
One of the major influences for Velocity 2X was the art style of Flashback on the Amiga. For those of you too young to have played Flashback (poor you, play the original!), it was a stunning visual achievement, using rotoscoped animation and a simple yet stylish art style to create a highly atmospheric experience. 12-year-old me fell in love with it.

Artistically speaking, we wanted Velocity 2X to be the spiritual successor to Flashback (and indeed Another World), and also to create a level of atmosphere and production value that is rarely seen in 2D games.

Despite being a small team of 10 (only three of which are artists), we set ourselves the ambitious challenge of reaching the kind of visual fidelity that makes people say “oooh” and “ahhh” and “take my money!”.

These are the benchmark images that we started with at the beginning of development. Chris (Goff) didn’t really know what was going to be possible visually, so he spent most of his time getting the art style in shape.

Hussain (Sheikh) our technical director, who worked as visual effects lead on Split/Second, was confident he could bring his experience in creating high end effects to the PS Vita, so Chris (Goff) set about creating some benchmark images that we could aim towards.

Chris set the bar pretty high, but when Shahid Ahmad at SCEE asked if we could raise the bar higher for PS4, Chris created these images:

Most of the team got very excited about what we were aiming for on PS4, but Hussain shrugged and smiled a quiet smile to himself.

When we showed the game at Eurogamer Expo, it had none of the effects that Hussain had been working on, and the artists had yet to make use of the dynamic environment lights. We also didn’t have a PS4 build underway yet.

However, as time went on it became clear that the game was actually going to visually exceed our original benchmarks, and it was even starting to look as good as the PS4 benchmarks on PS Vita.

It was then that Hussain told me he knew all along we could achieve the PS4 benchmark on PS Vita, but didn’t want to make any promises in case something came up.

But we have achieved and surpassed what we hoped to achieve, and now have the following high-end effects in the game:

Particle explosions

Dynamic environment lighting

Vignetting

Environment effects such as leaves in the wind, twinkling stars etc

Bloom

Light refraction

Anamorphic lens flare

Colour correction

Smooth 3D camera zoom

Screen shake & camera turbulence

As I said, there’s still plenty left to do. The artists have only just begun dressing the levels with all the effects at their disposal, and the design team still has many levels to design. And of course the animation on Kai is getting another pass. Rest assured we’ll put every drop of energy we have into making this game a delight.

If you don’t have a PS Vita, we want Velocity 2X to help convince you to pick one up. Why? We absolutely love the system. Pure and simple, it’s the best handheld ever, and that’s something I hear people saying more and more as time goes on – because it’s simply true. The amount of ENLIGHTENING FUN you get from the wealth of great games on PS Vita – indie and otherwise – makes it the most worthwhile gaming investment you can make.

We’re supporting PS Vita with Velocity 2X, and we suggest you do likewise!

@VaVeTi that is a very ignorant comment. Velocity is a AAA game scoring 9s and 10s across the board. You would know that if you were a serious gamer.

I can’t wait for this sequel, the first game was outstanding and there was a lot of content. I was going for the platinum but I can’t stand minesweeper lol so gave up.
Loving the new look and I hope the platforming sections turn out to be as fun and innovative as ship sections.

everybody i know including me hate games from futurelabs becouse they are just smartphone games only they have the balls to release the smartphone stuff on the vita respect i them for that tho but thats it

How can this possible still be alpha-gameplay?! It looks stunning! Can’t wait to get my hands on it. Looks like its going to be yet another Futurlab masterpiece! So easy to see you are all putting everything you got into all of your games. Got so much respect for you guys.
Wish triple A developers would take note of you, and other smaller companies!

Massively looking forward to this. Having spent considerable time with the first, both the original Mini version and the proper Vita/PS3 release, I imagine much time will be lost on both Vita and PS4. James, any chance of a more “Gradius” type weapon upgrade system rather than the obvious here’s a 3 way as you’ll need it for this next bit??? or maybe a shop (XENON2) where you can use your collected stuff for weapon purchases??? Should increase replay with overkill weaponry ๐ Many thanks, and by golly keep up the good work chap, all the very best to you and the team ๐

Seriously though guys that trailer looks great! After reading I do have a bit of a question. You guys mention that you want to try and achieve lens flare effects in the game. That sounds awesome and sci-fi-ish for sure, but from a gameplay stand point do you think it might be a bit too distracting if on the same level as something like the most recent Star Trek Into Darkness where the lens flares obstruct key visual elements at times? Are you guys going to scale them back from something like that example to ensure the player isn’t hindered by them?

Really enjoying surge as well, props to you guys for releasing it at a great impulse-purchase price. Most of the PSN game prices seem to be slowly creeping out of that range which, combined with my backlog, stops me buying a lot of them at launch.

Hi.
I love everything I see but do you think you could make the HUD sway/move/wobble in the final version?
I think it could be a nice aesthetic touch and enhance even further the overall “always in motion”, pass me the expression, feel/look of the game.

So much more hyped for this than any game the big publishers are planning to bring out this year- got Velocity Ultra part way through my first month of having a PS Vita and instantly dropped everything else I was playing until I platinumed it. Can’t believe the ignorance of the first poster, your games are great!

Will the trophy lists be seperate for Vita and PS4 this time round? Coz I really wouldn’t mind buying it twice if there were haha. Also are you aiming to release it this year?

Have you done anything to fix collision detection problems when brushing against walls? This was a problem for me with the original and, considering some of the levels demanded nothing but perfection, I found myself becoming frustrated quite regularly.

This does look brilliant. I have bought all of your games so far. (Well, sometimes they were handed to me on PS+ ) (I loved all of them, Fuel Tiracas I still haven’t got Surge yet but will do soon. I’m looking forward to picking-this up! How do the Vita and PS4 control schemes differ? I play it on the PS4, will I be able to use the native vita control scheme using remote play if I prefer that? (Obviously will be looking at TV though and not Vita screen if you understand what I mean?)

Oh my goodness.
I wanted this game already and then i saw the side scrolling character section and now i can’t wait!
This looks amazing. I would never have thought that you could top velocity 1 but you did.